Frequently Asked Questions

Yes — that’s the primary use case. Upload papers, textbooks, primary sources, or research articles in any of 33 supported languages. Ask questions in your native language about a foreign-language source. Get answers grounded in the actual text with chapter and passage citations. Researcher and Student profiles are tuned for this workflow.

Yes. You can read a Spanish-language paper and ask questions about it in English, German, Japanese, or any of the 33 supported languages. Parlecto translates the conceptual context, not just the words. Citations always reference the source-language passage.

Parlecto provides chunk-level citations that point to specific passages in your uploaded text. For formal academic citations (APA, MLA, Chicago), you should still verify the exact page or paragraph reference in your source document. Parlecto’s role is comprehension and drafting support, not as a citable source itself — cite the original text.

Parlecto transforms any book or document into a conversational, narrated experience. Upload a PDF, EPUB, DOCX, or TXT file, ask it questions and get answers grounded in the actual text, and listen to it with natural high-quality narration.

PDF, EPUB, DOCX, and TXT. Files must be DRM-free. Maximum upload size is 50 MB on Free tier and 200 MB on Pro.

Audiobook mode reads your book faithfully, word-for-word, like a professional audiobook narrator — with natural pacing, pauses, and emphasis. Available on all tiers. Storyteller mode (Pro+) uses AI to transform each chapter into natural spoken storytelling — smoother transitions, plays converted to narrative, dialogue read with flowing context. The meaning stays faithful to the original, but the words are adapted for listening rather than reading. Uses 15% more quota to cover the AI rewrite cost.

Parlecto uses OpenAI’s gpt-4o-mini-tts model, which understands what it’s reading and delivers natural pacing, pauses, and emphasis like a professional narrator.

Every answer is grounded in passages retrieved from your uploaded book. Answers include citation references so you can verify them against the original text. We describe our answers as “grounded and cited” — not “hallucination-free,” because no AI system can guarantee that.

Parlecto supports 33 languages for Q&A and narration, including English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, and many more. On the Free tier, you can ask questions and receive answers in any supported language. On Pro, you can also translate and narrate books in a different language than the original.

Free tier: $0/month — 2 active books, 60 minutes of narration, 1 reading profile. Pro: $9.90/month — 10 active books, 300 minutes of narration, Storyteller mode, translation into 33 languages, export. Premium: $29.90/month (coming soon) — 40 active books, 820 minutes of narration.

Narration is measured in characters and displayed in minutes (roughly 1,100 characters = 1 minute of audio). Free: 60 minutes/month (60,000 characters). Pro: 300 minutes/month (~5 hours, 330,000 characters). Premium: 820 minutes/month (~14 hours, 900,000 characters). Limits reset monthly.

Pro includes 300 minutes (~330,000 characters) of narration per month. Most non-fiction books and short novels fit comfortably. Long literary novels (500,000+ characters, such as Crime and Punishment or Anna Karenina) may span multiple months as your quota refreshes monthly. Premium’s 900,000-character monthly cap fits most long novels in a single month.

Each tier has a cap on active books to keep storage and processing costs sustainable. Free: 2 books. Pro: 10 books. Premium: 40 books. You can archive or delete books to free up slots on any tier.

Chapter audio is generated on-demand the first time you tap play. Once a chapter is rendered it is cached, so subsequent plays start instantly. Generation typically takes a few seconds to a minute depending on chapter length.

You can still chat with your books and read them — only new audio generation is paused until your limit resets at the start of the next month. Already-generated audio remains playable.

Yes. Cancel anytime from your profile page. Your subscription continues until the end of the current billing period. After that, your account reverts to the Free tier.

The Free tier is permanently free with no credit card required. No separate time-limited trial — start free and upgrade when you need more.

Your uploaded source file is deleted after processing. We retain derived text chunks (what the Q&A searches) and vector embeddings, scoped to your account with row-level security so only you can access them.

Yes. We process only the minimum data necessary, delete source files after processing, serve all traffic over HTTPS, rely on our hosting providers (Supabase, Cloudflare R2) for encryption at rest, and provide data deletion on request. See our Privacy Policy for full details.

Yes. Contact hello@parlecto.com and we will delete your account, all associated books, embeddings, conversations, and usage data within 30 days.

Only you. All data is isolated per user via Row Level Security at the database level. No other user, and no Parlecto employee, can access your books or conversations.